I'd rather be having a quiet drink... and can be followed on Twitter @alcothusiast; and friended on Untappd (handle: "neilcake" - all welcome).

Saturday, 17 May 2014

Alcohol and Performance

You may not know me in this particular capacity, but in a
former life I was actually a musician. From age 16 to around 33 I wrote songs
and played guitar in various bands until one day I decided I was tired of
constantly trying different chords next to each other, attempting to
communicate my vision to other musicians and hoping someone would actually care,
while what I really wanted to do was play a bit more sport before my body gave
out. I quit the band and went from playing football once a week to twice – that
was the plan at least – the 1st time I played a second time in a
week, I twisted my knee pretty badly and ended up on crutches, putting my first
ever Spanish golf holiday in jeopardy.

My knee still isn’t quite right (more than 2 years later),
but after a long period of recovery I went back to playing football once a week. I didn’t go back to music
straight away though – nor did I miss it. Gone were the days when I thought in
music and obsessed about it. I felt it was a shame that I couldn’t call myself
a musician anymore, and I felt sad that my skills honed over years of serious
playing would atrophy but… you can always go back later in life if you want to
– it’s not unlike riding a bike...

…as I have found now that I have returned to music in a much reduced capacity. My friend
David’s band required a bass player – for a few upcoming gigs in the first
instance – so I offered to help out. I do miss the exhilaration of gigging, of
entering a venue just as a guy, and leaving it feeling that you own it – not so
much, doing a bad gig and feeling depressed about it, but you got to take the
rough with the smooth. So this is good because it requires none of the effort
of writing songs and leading a band, but I do get to play gigs pretty much
straight away – and in case you didn’t know, guitar players make the best bass
players – it’s just hard to convince a guitar player to switch to the bass.
Luckily for Custom 12 (as they’re known), I like the bass (thanks to the music
of James Brown as well as players such as Mike Watt) and I’m fairly good at it
– in my own way.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to change this into a blog about
the band or about music, but it does mean that I can cover another aspect of
experiencing alcohol, which is what thisblog
is all about – that of performance and alcohol. I’m not talking sexual
performance here, though that could potentially be far more interesting (by which I mean x-rated) because
alcohol lowers the inhibitions… and that coincidentally is where alcohol comes
in useful in the performance of music – to a degree at least, because as we’ll
see, there are parameters that need to be adhered to. Sexual performance and
alcohol… can be one for the future.

I remember my first ever gig [wistfully]. My friend Phil and I performed as an acoustic duo in
the upstairs room of Sheffield’s The Grapes pub. I was so nervous that I was
shaking during the soundcheck. I knew I couldn’t perform like that. Your
accuracy and timing can be all over the place when you’re nervous – though
conversely, it can also help you perform
to the best of your ability; it’s like you might hear it said that sportsmen
‘raise their game’ against the strongest opponents. It’s a fine line. I later
learned not to be so nervous, but on that occasion I knew I needed alcohol.

I think I drank three pints and two double vodkas before we
hit the stage that night, and the gig went really well. There was one point
where I forgot the next bit of a song called ‘Let’s Make Friends’, and I just
paused, trying desperately to remember the next part. Phil continued for a few
bars and then stopped.

“Keep going, mate!” I urged.

He set off again, and that proved the jolt I needed to get
the next few bars back in my head. I jumped in, and we finished the song
triumphantly.

I learned soon after that there is such a thing as too
much alcohol before a gig – three pints and two double vodkas would
normally represent far too much, but
on that first occasion it did the job. Easily the worst example of too much was
when my friend Pits and I went to a birthday party in Macclesfield where they
had band equipment set up. Having been in a band together before, we figured we
could do a quick rendition of Neil Young’s Hey
Hey, My My which is a particular favourite of mine. Pits decided he would
play the drums, despite his enthusiasm far exceeding his ability on that
particular instrument.

I don’t like thinking about the performance, but let’s just
say we were very drunk and it was shit. I knew it was shit from the moment we
started, but we ploughed on, all the while aware that it wasn’t getting any
better. Occasionally I manage to forget about the whole experience for a while…
but then I remember. It’s like when you’ve done something bad that you feel
really guilty about and you hate yourself for it, then you forget for a bit, and
you go, “wait, I was feeling bad about
something… what was I feeling bad about?... oh yeh.” It’s ruined that song
for me. I was hoping writing about it might make me feel better, but it’s just
reminded me again. I actually started writing about the episode in more detail,
thinking it would be an entertaining story, but it was just too painful.
Anyway…

It really is a shame that you need to moderate your alcohol
intake before a gig because there is often a lot of waiting around, and waiting
around breeds nerves – will we play well? Will we be able to hear ourselves?
Will there be anyone there to hear us? Too much alcohol though, and I find you
can become numb to the music; disconnected and clumsy – you don’t know it until
you’ve performed in a band, but a lot of the time you can’t actually hear
yourself on stage, or you can’t hear the other members, so it can be very
difficult to play tightly and in time. It only takes one person to make a
mistake in order to put everyone off, and the more complicated you make your
songs, the more things there are to go wrong. Too little alcohol though, and
you can be nervous, stiff and boring.

I found through experimentation that my optimum alcohol
intake for improved musical performance is three pints. I could have more in rehearsal, but when it came to be the night of
the gig, I always stopped at three – but tried to make up for it afterwards. I
never made it policy in my bands, but as far as I can remember, each member
stuck to it – no one wants to look like an idiot on stage, or be the one to let
the side down – that’s why you get nervous in the first place. There aren’t
many people who can be the onstage drunk, and get away with it. And if
you’re serious about being in a band, you need to be professional. Being in a
band is one of the few potential career paths where alcohol is a possibility –
even mandatory – but if you don’t do a good show no one is going to like you
and you aren’t going to have fun.

I suppose the worst case scenario would be like the bootleg
recording I once heard of Jimi Hendrix jamming with Jim Morrison. Morrison was a
mess, and just spent the whole time slurring expletives into the mic –
poet, my ass. Not cool, even for him. So this is probably the only exception I
have found to the BTMTNE rule – Better Too Much Than Not Enough.

I joined Custom 12 four weeks before they were scheduled to
play a show at Manchester’s Retro Bar. We managed one (and pretty much) a half
rehearsals before David and I had a week’s golfing booked in Spain, after which
there was a week in which we couldn’t rehearse due to practice room issues,
before finally getting three rehearsals in the week before the gig itself. I
put in a bit of time at home as well – I wasn’t going to be the weak link if I
could help it.

Summer had hit the UK at last, and on the Sunday before the
gig Mrs Cake and I took a walk to a nearby pub and sat in the beer garden with
a pint (Bohemia Regent for me, Manchester Pale Ale for the missus). It was one
of those days where you have to go out and do something because otherwise it’s a crime. I so desperately wanted
to stay there all afternoon, but no, I had a rehearsal that evening, and since
there was a gig coming up in a week and I hadn’t even learned all the songs
yet, I knew I couldn’t show up pissed. At the ripe old age of 35 it seems, I’ve
finally learned some self-control. There’s a time for being cool and rock n’
roll, and there’s a time for being professional. When you’re new to a band and
you want to impress, you need to be professional. I would just have to look
forward to getting home later that night, when I had decided I’d allow myself
to open my Gran Duque D’Alba Solera Gran Riserva brandy.

When I joined the band I was a little excited about being
able to make choices about what to drink at rehearsal again. Beer is the
classic choice of course, but buying 4-8 cans of something nice every week can
get expensive after a while – especially when you have to pay for the rehearsal
room and a couple of drinks at the pub beforehand.

To deal with that expense, in the past I would call at Aldi
on my way and pick up a bottle of red wine for £2.99. I could make that last
two rehearsals, or just get smashed each week. It hasn’t actually worked out
that way so far, unfortunately. I’ve been a bit hard up for the last few
months, so I’ve been driving to rehearsal with a single can in my bass bag, and
having a couple of drinks when I get home instead. And that’s actually ok. I
don’t have to deal with the bus home and it saves me money.

As for the gig, well that went well too. I was a lot more
relaxed than I used to be – confident that I’d done enough to learn the songs
and, since now I’m just the bass player and not the focal point, the whole
thing doesn’t rest on me. I don’t have to take personal ownership over
everything, which means the pressure is greatly reduced. Correspondingly, the
glory afterwards isn’t quite so pronounced either, but for now, I’m happy with
that. I just need to make sure my parts are good and that I play them well. It
all makes for good times.

Thanks for reading. I was just perusing some of my previous
posts and figured some of the personality has dropped out since I stopped
posting on a Friday night… I don’t really want to start doing that again, but…
for the moment it seems potentially worthwhile. It was kind of nice to sign off
with a weekend of booze-fuelled adventures ahead. So here I am, and while it
was supposed to be Friday night again, I ended up going to the pub after work,
and didn’t fancy sitting at the computer. So now it’s Saturday evening, and
while I was intending to be at the Levenshulme Beer Festival by now, I’m
actually still waiting to go. We ended up doing a marathon shop in advance of
next weekend’s music and booze fest – Bearded Theory (which you might remember me
blogging about last year) and now we’re
just chillin’ for a bit.

The weather’s good though, so maybe I’ll see you at the Levy
Fest in an hour or so, or at Bearded Theory next week. Have a good ‘un and I’ll
see you back here next week (though probably on Thursday rather than Friday),
when at this point I am intending to post about an Irish Cream three-way. It’s
not quite as interesting as it
sounds, but if you like Irish Cream and you want to know how three different
brands compare… this is where you
want to be. So, yeh… not as interesting as I made it sound. BOOBIES!

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.